Susan Dorothea White
Encyclopedia
Susan Dorothea White also called Sue White and Susan White, is an Australian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. She is a narrative artist and her work concerns the natural world and human situation, increasingly incorporating satire and irony to convey her concern for human rights and equality. Her art is skill-based and multidisciplinary; she is the author of Draw Like Da Vinci (2006).
; her family supported and encouraged her artistic development. She began exhibiting in 1957 while still at boarding school in Adelaide and was accepting portrait commissions soon thereafter. In 1958 she attended Saturday drawing classes conducted by the artist James Cant. From 1959 to mid-1960, White was a prize-winning student in the Diploma of Fine Art program at the South Australian School of Art. At the South Australian School of Art, White was initiated in art appreciation by the artist-teacher Dora Chapman who taught her "a broad range of skills including perspective projection". White also learnt lithography from Udo Sellbach. In July 1960 she moved to Sydney and continued full-time studies at the Julian Ashton Art School under Henry Gibbons. In Sydney she also attended evening classes at the National Art School
, in sculpture under Lyndon Dadswell and in drawing. At this time White was known as a landscape and portrait painter. White held her first solo exhibition at age 20 in Broken Hill; this exhibition comprised paintings, drawings, lithographs, and etchings; a contemporary Sydney critic described her painting as "good in its curious Victorian way".
Her large tableau The First Supper
, which was painted in 1988 at the time of the Australian Bicentenary
, shows White's inventiveness and concern for human issues. Controversial in Australia, the painting was exhibited in her solo exhibition in Amsterdam where it featured in the Dutch art journal Kunstbeeld: "The work shows clearly Susan White's thinking about human rights. It should be mentioned here that she sometimes places her many faceted talent at the service of the struggle for human rights". Subsequently The First Supper was exhibited in a solo show in Cologne, in the Munich Volkshochschule and in other centres in Germany with media commenting "...in this portrayal Jesus is a woman, an Australian aboriginal. Her 'female disciples' are sitting to her right and left: women from all corners of the world..." and "...the image generates intense discussion". A 1994 American doctoral dissertation and 1999 journal article analyses The First Supper as "a subversive postmodern ironic reading of Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper
".
Hieronymus Bosch is another artist who influences White's art - "She is also a strong social satirist, particularly in paintings such as The Crowning with Sexism, which combines iconographic images of Marilyn Monroe
and Joe DiMaggio
with a composition borrowed from Hieronymus Bosch, as well as in other Boschian extravaganzas such as The Seven Deadly Sins of Modern Times
and The Seven Deadly Isms. The latter work is mounted on a circular table and composed of several interconnecting compositions depicting such contemporary obsessions as Materialism and Workaholism in intricate figurative tableaux".
.
White exhibited bronzes in Geneva (1997) and Nice (2000), and mixed media assemblages in the Florence Biennale
in 2001. In 2005 the Buhl Collection (New York) commissioned a large bronze sculpture Stretching the Imagination. Her mixed-media assemblages incorporate fabrics with the carving of rare Huon pine salvaged from Tasmania - "Susan Dorothea White's use of unusual materials such as endangered and recycled woods native to Australia contributes significantly to the effectiveness of her work...".
s, lithographs
, woodcut
s, and linocut
s since 1960. She prints her own work, with many early graphic works being pulled by hand using a wooden wringer. For example the 1986 lithograph The Front Verandah (see External links), which comments on the Chernobyl disaster
, incorporates plates for 15 colours. In its collection, the National Gallery of Australia
holds 27 of the artist's prints produced between 1960 and 1996. A catalogue of White's prints is published in The Printworld Directory.
White is a skilled draughtswoman and drawing is the foundation of her art - "Susan White is constantly sketching from everyday life and it is from the many sketchbooks that she first extracts the material for her compositions". The media she uses for drawing include pen and ink, ballpoint, brush, crayon, chalk, pastel
, conté
, and charcoal. Recently she has experimented with mixed-media techniques in silverpoint
and goldpoint, as well as drawing over inkjet prints
. Between 1982 and 1989 White taught drawing in community classes and at evening colleges. In 2000 she co-established anatomy drawing workshops at the University of New South Wales
(School of Medical Sciences). She gives occasional lectures in Anatomy Art and has made many drawings from anatomical specimens.
. The book contains numerous projects for the reader to work through, such as drawing a 'sfumato tomato', portraiture, and drapery. The author analyses Leonardo's artworks including The Last Supper, Ginevra de' Benci
, The Virgin of the Rocks, etc., and reveals the skills behind them. In 2007 the book was translated into French and published as Dessiner à la manière de Léonard da Vinci. The book has also been translated into Danish (Lær at tegne som Da Vinci) and Hungarian (Rajzoljunk úgy, mint Leonardo da Vinci). Reviews of the English version have appeared on about.com
, on bella.com, and in Artists & Illustrators.
, Sulman Prize
, the Portia Geach Memorial Award
, and the Blake Prize. A selection of significant exhibitions on White's website lists her participation in group shows at the Adelaide Festival of Arts
in 1972 and 1978, and in the landmark 1959 South Australian exhibition Artists & Sculptors of Promise.
Education and early career
Born in Adelaide, South Australia, White grew up in the outback mining town of Broken HillBroken Hill, New South Wales
-Geology:Broken Hill's massive orebody, which formed about 1,800 million years ago, has proved to be among the world's largest silver-lead-zinc mineral deposits. The orebody is shaped like a boomerang plunging into the earth at its ends and outcropping in the centre. The protruding tip of the...
; her family supported and encouraged her artistic development. She began exhibiting in 1957 while still at boarding school in Adelaide and was accepting portrait commissions soon thereafter. In 1958 she attended Saturday drawing classes conducted by the artist James Cant. From 1959 to mid-1960, White was a prize-winning student in the Diploma of Fine Art program at the South Australian School of Art. At the South Australian School of Art, White was initiated in art appreciation by the artist-teacher Dora Chapman who taught her "a broad range of skills including perspective projection". White also learnt lithography from Udo Sellbach. In July 1960 she moved to Sydney and continued full-time studies at the Julian Ashton Art School under Henry Gibbons. In Sydney she also attended evening classes at the National Art School
National Art School
The National Art School is an art school in Sydney, Australia. It is a Public Company Limited by Guarantee with a board of directors. It has Institutional Registration and Course Accreditation supported by the DET Higher Education Directorate....
, in sculpture under Lyndon Dadswell and in drawing. At this time White was known as a landscape and portrait painter. White held her first solo exhibition at age 20 in Broken Hill; this exhibition comprised paintings, drawings, lithographs, and etchings; a contemporary Sydney critic described her painting as "good in its curious Victorian way".
Painting
The artist's earliest paintings are mostly oils on composition board and watercolours. In the 1970s the artist changed from oils to the use of acrylics on wood panel. She developed skill in a painting technique "that produces nuance in colour and subtle gradations in tones. The basis of the method is the application of successive washes of acrylic colour to the wood with light sanding of the surface between each wash." White's more recent paintings have been described as exploring "the most intimate experiences of her life, as well as more topical subjects, in meticulously limned acrylic paintings on wood panels. Her ability to examine unflinchingly such personal milestones as her surgery for a benign brain tumor with a dazed self-portrait in a vertiginously askew hospital setting results in some of the most emotionally jarring narrative imagery in recent art". Some of White's acrylic paintings incorporate collage.Her large tableau The First Supper
The First Supper
The First Supper is a controversial work of art by Susan Dorothea White, based on Leonardo da Vinci's painting The Last Supper. White's painting is acrylic on a large wood panel and, in a challenge to the patriarchal concept of thirteen men on one side of a table, shows 13 women from all regions...
, which was painted in 1988 at the time of the Australian Bicentenary
Australian Bicentenary
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1970 on the 200th anniversary of Captain James Cook landing and claiming the land, and again in 1988 to celebrate 200 years of permanent European settlement.-1970:...
, shows White's inventiveness and concern for human issues. Controversial in Australia, the painting was exhibited in her solo exhibition in Amsterdam where it featured in the Dutch art journal Kunstbeeld: "The work shows clearly Susan White's thinking about human rights. It should be mentioned here that she sometimes places her many faceted talent at the service of the struggle for human rights". Subsequently The First Supper was exhibited in a solo show in Cologne, in the Munich Volkshochschule and in other centres in Germany with media commenting "...in this portrayal Jesus is a woman, an Australian aboriginal. Her 'female disciples' are sitting to her right and left: women from all corners of the world..." and "...the image generates intense discussion". A 1994 American doctoral dissertation and 1999 journal article analyses The First Supper as "a subversive postmodern ironic reading of Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper
Last Supper
The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...
".
Hieronymus Bosch is another artist who influences White's art - "She is also a strong social satirist, particularly in paintings such as The Crowning with Sexism, which combines iconographic images of Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
and Joe DiMaggio
Joe DiMaggio
Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio , nicknamed "Joltin' Joe" and "The Yankee Clipper," was an American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak , a record that still stands...
with a composition borrowed from Hieronymus Bosch, as well as in other Boschian extravaganzas such as The Seven Deadly Sins of Modern Times
The Seven Deadly Sins of Modern Times
The Seven Deadly Sins of Modern Times is an acrylic painting on a wooden table by the contemporary Australian artist Susan Dorothea White...
and The Seven Deadly Isms. The latter work is mounted on a circular table and composed of several interconnecting compositions depicting such contemporary obsessions as Materialism and Workaholism in intricate figurative tableaux".
Sculpture
White studied sculpture at the South Australian School of Art; subsequently she learnt from Lyndon Dadswell at the National Art School in Sydney. She works in sandstone, marble, wood carving, bronze, and mixed-media assemblage. Following her solo show in New York in 1998, the Hechinger Collection acquired White's mixed media assemblage It Cuts Both Ways (see External links), which was then displayed in a long-term exhibition at the National Building MuseumNational Building Museum
The National Builders Museum, in Washington, D.C., United States, is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning"...
.
White exhibited bronzes in Geneva (1997) and Nice (2000), and mixed media assemblages in the Florence Biennale
Florence Biennale
The Florence Biennale is an international contemporary art fair held every two years in the Historical Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy. The Biennale is run by Arte Studio, whose first contemporary art exhibition occurred in 1986. Subsequent exhibits grew, and they eventually formed the first...
in 2001. In 2005 the Buhl Collection (New York) commissioned a large bronze sculpture Stretching the Imagination. Her mixed-media assemblages incorporate fabrics with the carving of rare Huon pine salvaged from Tasmania - "Susan Dorothea White's use of unusual materials such as endangered and recycled woods native to Australia contributes significantly to the effectiveness of her work...".
Printmaking and drawing
As a printmaker White has produced etchingEtching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s, lithographs
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
, woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s, and linocut
Linocut
Linocut is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum is used for the relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised areas representing a reversal of the parts to show printed...
s since 1960. She prints her own work, with many early graphic works being pulled by hand using a wooden wringer. For example the 1986 lithograph The Front Verandah (see External links), which comments on the Chernobyl disaster
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine , which was under the direct jurisdiction of the central authorities in Moscow...
, incorporates plates for 15 colours. In its collection, the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
holds 27 of the artist's prints produced between 1960 and 1996. A catalogue of White's prints is published in The Printworld Directory.
White is a skilled draughtswoman and drawing is the foundation of her art - "Susan White is constantly sketching from everyday life and it is from the many sketchbooks that she first extracts the material for her compositions". The media she uses for drawing include pen and ink, ballpoint, brush, crayon, chalk, pastel
Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....
, conté
Conté
Conté, also known as Conté sticks or Conté crayons, are a drawing medium composed of compressed powdered graphite or charcoal mixed with a wax or clay base, square in cross-section...
, and charcoal. Recently she has experimented with mixed-media techniques in silverpoint
Silverpoint
Silverpoint is a traditional drawing technique first used by Medieval scribes on manuscripts.-History:A silverpoint drawing is made by dragging a silver rod or wire across a surface, often prepared with gesso or primer. Silverpoint is one of several types of metalpoint used by scribes, craftsmen...
and goldpoint, as well as drawing over inkjet prints
Inkjet printer
An inkjet printer is a type of computer printer that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost up to thousands of...
. Between 1982 and 1989 White taught drawing in community classes and at evening colleges. In 2000 she co-established anatomy drawing workshops at the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
(School of Medical Sciences). She gives occasional lectures in Anatomy Art and has made many drawings from anatomical specimens.
Book
In 2005 White wrote and illustrated Draw Like da Vinci. With over 150 images, the book explains the fundamental drawing principles used by Leonardo da Vinci, as well as his tools and techniques such as silverpointSilverpoint
Silverpoint is a traditional drawing technique first used by Medieval scribes on manuscripts.-History:A silverpoint drawing is made by dragging a silver rod or wire across a surface, often prepared with gesso or primer. Silverpoint is one of several types of metalpoint used by scribes, craftsmen...
. The book contains numerous projects for the reader to work through, such as drawing a 'sfumato tomato', portraiture, and drapery. The author analyses Leonardo's artworks including The Last Supper, Ginevra de' Benci
Ginevra de' Benci
Ginevra de' Benci was an aristocrat from 15th-century Florence, admired for her intelligence by Florentine contemporaries. She is the subject of a portrait painting by Leonardo da Vinci...
, The Virgin of the Rocks, etc., and reveals the skills behind them. In 2007 the book was translated into French and published as Dessiner à la manière de Léonard da Vinci. The book has also been translated into Danish (Lær at tegne som Da Vinci) and Hungarian (Rajzoljunk úgy, mint Leonardo da Vinci). Reviews of the English version have appeared on about.com
About.com
About.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....
, on bella.com, and in Artists & Illustrators.
Exhibitions
White began exhibiting in 1957 and held her first solo in 1962 (Broken Hill); significant solo shows include New York, Cologne, Amsterdam, Munich, Adelaide, Sydney. White has represented Australia in over 60 international biennales, triennales, etc. in US, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, Brazil, China, Hungary, Poland, Canada, Yugoslavia, US, and UK. She has also exhibited in group shows in Washington, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Berlin, Nice, New York, Amsterdam, and Geneva. Australian group exhibitions include the Wynne PrizeWynne Prize
The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. One of Australia's longest running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne...
, Sulman Prize
Sulman Prize
The Sir John Sulman Prize is one of Australia's longest running art prizes, having been established in 1936.It is now held concurrently with the Archibald Prize, Australia's best known art prize, and also with the Wynne Prize, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales , Sydney.-Criteria:The Sir John...
, the Portia Geach Memorial Award
Portia Geach Memorial Award
The Portia Geach Memorial Award is an annual award for Australian female portraitists. The Award was established in 1961 as a testamentary trust by Florence Kate Geach, sister of Australian painter Portia Geach, with an initial endowment of 12,000 Australian pounds...
, and the Blake Prize. A selection of significant exhibitions on White's website lists her participation in group shows at the Adelaide Festival of Arts
Adelaide Festival of Arts
The Adelaide Festival of Arts is an arts festival held biennially in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Although locally considered to be one of the world's greatest celebrations of the arts, that is internationally renowned and the pre-eminent cultural event in Australia, it is actually...
in 1972 and 1978, and in the landmark 1959 South Australian exhibition Artists & Sculptors of Promise.